Free Candy For Everyone

I don’t know if I have been missing the emails telling me about upcoming Flecks or if there just hasn’t een one in a while, but tonight was my first Flecks in quite some time. Flecks, if you’re just tuning in, is a tradition at ILM where they watch horrible, terrible movies and heckle the screen. Tonight’s gem was Transmorphers, a direct-to-DVD movie to jump on the Transformers hype.

Transmorphers is brought to us by The Asylum, the same company (and director!) who brought us the glory of Snakes on a Train. This movie was actually markedly better than Snakes was! I know, it’s hard to believe. Instead of being the worst movie ever, it was perhaps the 27th worst movie ever.

Picture every sci-fi movie cliche you can imagine. Picture tidbits culled from Battlestar Galactica and the Matrix. Picture visual effects about as the first animation homework at art school. You picturing all that? Are you smiling? Then you must be a masochist and Flecks is for you!

There was something about it being the future and an invasion by robots that wiped out 90% of the human population. I think they were living underground? And apparently gay marriage is legal in the future because there was the required lesbian bit with a married female couple. Other than that, it’s a blur of terrible dialog, horrible acting and poor combat scenes. Then we watched the VFX special feature on the DVD. That was a hoot. Sitting there with folks from ILM watching some yahoo talk in remedial language about his effects work was just too much. Oh, it was good.

I’m starting to wonder why I keep going to Flecks. Each month, I go and watch a completely awful movie that makes me question my sanity. This month was no different. We had the pleasure of watching Incubus.

This gem is an early William Shatner (I love that Shatner’s main IMDB photo is early Trek years when he’s all pretty, rather than what he looks like now) flick that is ENTIRELY IN ESPERANTO. Yes. Really.

It was subtitled, but it was as though they didn’t really want us to be able to watch the darn movie. I’ve never seen such large text. And it was almost in the center of the screen, which pretty well obscured what was happening. Which wasn’t much.

There was some sort of story involving evil succubi who lured bad men to death and hell. And Shatner was a true hero with a good soul and he was a tough cookie. But mostly, there seemed to be a lot of walking. Characters would walk from one place to another without any cuts, over hill over dale, they walked and walked. One fellow in the audience cracked, “It’s more like Walkubus!” We all chuckled because it was way too true.

This was the first Flecks that I almost left. But just as I felt I couldn’t take anymore, someone said “This must be almost over?” and it was confirmed that we were nearing the end of our self-inflicted torment. Thus, I stuck it out, like the true Flecks champion that I am! But really, stay away from this one. Far, far away.

I have been remiss in sharing my most recent adventures. I know return to tell you of not one, but two fantastic Flecks experiences. This would be the viewing of two of the worst movies ever. Really. Even worse than Snakes on a Train. I don’t know how I can keep going to these movie showings. And yet I do.

First up is the September Flecks showing, Turkish Superman! This one had a major good factor going for it - it was short. And that was about the only good thing. First off, let me say that the copy we were viewing looked like a poor video transfer. And it had no subtitles. That’s right, we watched the whole movie with only our vivid imaginations to fill in the dialog. I’m guessing we didn’t miss much. It starts with a scene of space. Or what is supposed to be space. It’s really just Christmas tree ornaments and possibly Cheerios. They look at “space” for perhaps 5 minutes. I’m not kidding. It was five whole minutes of just looking at the fantasticness of their version of space. Yawn.

Next we see Superman conversing with his parents? An older woman and man, and there seems to be some disagreement. He packs his bags and leaves for his Fortress of Solitude which wasn’t quite up to par. Then there’s weird scenes of him at a desk at work and I can’t even recall the whole thing. I’ve blanked it out. But the combat scenes were awesome. They’d try to make it look like he’d used some special super power to jump from on high and really he’d do a little hop and there’d be a camera cut. Um. We weren’t fooled. Or he’d punch someone and get no where near making even vague contact. Oh, it was hilarious.

The flight scenes were great too. They took a really bad image of him in a flying pose and just plopped it down over some stock footage. Look, it’s Turkish Superman in front of some trees! Look, he’s flying over a Coliseum! Sure he is. Oh yes, it was hilarious. And then it ended. And we knew it was the end because the Christmas tree ornaments came back. We all cheered (or at least I gave a mental cheer) with excitement knowing it was over. Dum dum daaa. Until next time!

And what was next time, you ask? Oh, it was good. It was sooo good. Because it was a movie with the champion of Knight Riding, Mr. David Hasselhoff! The gem was called Starcrash, and it was really really bad. It was endlessly long. Even the Flecks crew eventually ran out of humorous commentary and we just sat there, rather numb. You should definitely go to this site and check out the awesome images.

The movie was post-Star Wars, and it was just such a poor version of the original. It started with a giant spaceship passing overhead. But the ship looked worse than a bunch of Legos. It was awful. And things didn’t really improve. Though there was one fantastic battle scene where they were sending this missile/bullet things through space. They hit the enemy spaceship, BROKE THROUGH A GLASS WINDOW, IN SPACE, and opened up to reveal troops who then proceeded to fight. In the decompressed chamber. Because the filmmakers didn’t even care about worrying about that sort of thing. Though in other scenes there were space suits and helmets and everything. It was wildly inconsistent. I don’t recommend this one to any but the heartiest of souls who can withstand extended pain. Else seek your amusement otherwheres.

Yesterday I subjected myself to the worst movie I’ve ever seen. On purpose. With advance knowledge of what I was getting myself into. No, I’m not crazy. It was all for a good laugh.

Industrial Light & Magic has been running a movie screening called “Flecks” for a while now, where they watch a bad movie and heckle at it the whole time. Since ILM and LucasArts now share a space, we’re invited to come join the fun. I decided to give it a try, since it was hyped as hugely funny.

Last night’s selection was Snakes on a Train (yes, you read that right). This gem was a direct-to-video attempt to capitalize on the buzz for Snakes on a Plane. It was low budget schlock with a ridiculous plot. But the heckling sure was good.

Plot spoilers ahead! If you have any intention of watching this wonderous(ly awful) film, stop your eyes now! Ok, I’m sure I didn’t lose any readers because you should NOT WATCH THIS THING!

The burning question on your mind is what plot device do they use to get the snakes on the train? Well, I’ll tell you! There’s a lovely Mexican lady who’s been cursed by her family because she wouldn’t marry the rich guy they wanted her to. And the curse causes her to vomit snakes! In blobs of green jello! And though they start out as small little garter snakes, over time they get bigger and bigger (and somehow get rattles) until they can eat people! Yay!

Along the way there are fun side plots like the two nice girls who decided to smuggle drugs to make some money, get caught by some guy claiming to be a Texas Ranger narcotics officer who then proceeds to take one of the girls to an empty train car and turn the movie into a porno. Don’t worry, she loses her top, but that’s about all. Because then some other guy turns up, and in a completely incomprehensible sequence of events, holds a gun to Texas Ranger’s head, pulls him into a storage car, makes him take off his shirt “So everyone can see how gay you are” and then shoots him in the mouth. I just don’t get it.

Lots of people we don’t care about die, and in the final scenes of the movie everything goes in a completely different direction and the vomiting snake woman turns into a ginormous snake that actually eats the entire train in a series of horrific CG scenes. I’m not kidding you. It’s true.

Anyways, I think the humor I have for it in hindsight might have made it all worthwhile. Maybe. But please, don’t watch it alone. You need a good group of people to make it tolerable.